Optimization Editor

PAY ATTENTION, Y’ALL: At about the time Tuesday evening that members of the Mayor’s Task Force on Economic Development are presenting their proposed economic development strategy to Athens-Clarke County’s mayor and commission, I’ll be on a beach at some otherwise undisclosed location enjoying an adult beverage and perusing a seafood menu.

If, however, I were at the commission’s Tuesday work session, I’d be tempted to tell the mayor and commissioners to pay particular attention to task force chairman Grant Tribble when he talks with them about the group’s struggle with the issue of who should comprise the board of the Center for Economic Development. The board is envisioned by the task force as an appointed five-member body whose members would have some business expertise. It would work in tandem with a paid economic development professional who would be the designated economic development contact for the community.

As has been reported previously in the Banner-Herald, the task force’s initial plan was to exclude local elected officials — and, for that matter, local government employees — from board membership. That position, however, became problematic for the task force as it also opted to propose that the mayor and commission dedicate a half-mill’s worth of local property taxes — currently a shade more than $1.5 million annually — to local economic development efforts.

Significant community sentiment settled on the entirely reasonable thought that if taxpayer dollars are to be used to fund economic development, taxpayers should have representation, via their elected officials, on the economic development center’s board. And thus it was that the task force backed away from its proposed exclusion of those officials.

The task force’s initial rationale for that exclusion, through which Tribble will take the mayor and commission on Tuesday evening, was that conflicts of interest might arise for elected officials, and even government staffers, serving on a board that would be dealing with business and industrial prospects, land acquisition and related issues.

It’s a reasonable concern, and one that the mayor and commission should weigh carefully against the other reasonable concern about having a role on a body that would claim a significant taxpayer outlay.

Personally, if I were the mayor, or a commissioner, I’d be concerned about the possibility that, in having a seat at the board table, I might suddenly find myself mired in a conflict of interest that might later find me mired in some legal quicksand. As such, I wouldn’t be unduly concerned about not having direct representation on the center’s board — and might even be grateful for that fact — as long as I had some role in deciding who wound up on the board.

UNICORN FARMS AND RAINBOW FACTORIES — NOT: And while I’m on the subject of economic development — and, handily, some hundreds of miles away — I have another thought to share on the subject.

On more than one occasion in covering the task force’s meetings, I heard the phrase “the realities of economic development,” or words to that effect. From my perspective, the phrase was a somewhat unkind reference to people in this community who might not see economic development as primarily concerned with large industrial or business investments in the community, but as a venture that ought also, and perhaps primarily, be concerned with smallish, perhaps fanciful, entrepreneurial efforts, and with quality-of-life initiatives deemed in some quarters to be conducive to attracting business to Athens-Clarke County.

What I think that dismissive attitude — whether intended as such or not — may have done in connection with the task force’s work is to keep it from taking seriously the organic ways in which some small businesses bloom and grow, and thus from considering in any detail how assisting and attracting those businesses might justifiably become a major component of worthwhile local economic development efforts.

And so, just as much as I hope the mayor and commission will pay attention to the task force’s discussion of membership on the economic development board, I also hope that the mayor and commission will work to ensure that a final economic development strategy will seriously address how the community can best assist businesses that are developing outside traditional avenues.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll order up another adult beverage. See y’all next week!